Theo Ghana 84% Cacao
Theo Chocolate is the first bean-to-bar chocolate maker in the US. They roast, mill, blend, and conch all their beans in their Fremont District factory in Seattle. Theo has an uncompromising commitment to high quality, fairly traded, multi-origin, organic chocolate.

The Ghana 84% bar is from Theo’s “Origins” line. It is packaged in 3-ounce (80-gram) bars, priced at $6.00. The pure, clean chocolate aroma of this bar is very striking. While the bar has a slightly uneven look, the chocolate has a nice matte finish that works with the unevenness to give a hand-made, small batch feel to the bar. Its snap is a bit on the fuzzy side, but this is not a serious detraction.

The Ghana flavour starts out bitter, but softens and rounds out a bit, though the bitterness sticks around with just the right note of dryness through the length. With the softening comes hints of fruit, then a distinct nuttiness, and a flowery top note, perhaps violets, and finally, a rich coffee finish.

This is sophisticated chocolate, though perhaps more suited for cooking than for everyday nibbling.

Theo 3400 Phinney Chocolate Factory Bread and Chocolate Bar
I have written about this bar before. I continue to love it. It continues to be earthy, dark, and delicious. It’s a brilliant concoction of 65% cacao, organic French bread crumbs, organic butter, sea salt, and sugar.

No airs, no graces, just a lovely balance of bittersweet salty goodness. If you like dark chocolate, or pain au chocolat, try this bar next time you’re in Seattle. You may end up hoarding it just like I do. Bread and Chocolate is sold in 2-ounce (56-gram) bars for $4.00.

I eat far more chocolate than I ever write about, which is not to say that I stuff myself so full of it that I lose my memory. More like it’s sometimes just too hard to find the time to report on every single morsel of the stuff that crosses my lips.

All the same, it seems apropos to at least write about the chocolate I consumed on our recent trip down the I-5 through Washington to Ashland, Oregon, and that is, for the most part, not yet available in Vancouver.

Vosges Calindia Bar
There is a lot to be about the way le Cordon Bleu alum Katrina Markoff packages her Vosges Haute Chocolate products. Her business model is similar to Starbucks’ but on a smaller scale: Vosges is more about selling lifestyle than chocolate. Which is why if you visit the Vosges website you will have not only all manner of sweets to chose from, but also T-shirts, belts, bags, and even information about retreats that Markoff co-sponsors, which are devoted to chocolate and yoga.

If you flip over the pretty packaging her bars come in, you will find friendly instructions that tell you how to see, smell, snap, taste, and feel chocolate. All the info a chocolate dilettante needs.

Portland’s Whole Foods Market had a range of Vosges’ Exotic Candy Bars to choose from, but the one which appealed most was the Calindia. This was labeled as 66% Venezuelan dark chocolate with Indian green cardamom, organic California walnuts, and dried plums. The 3.4-ounce (97 gm.) bar was priced at $6.99, and the price tag noted the bar was from their cheese section.

To be fair, Whole Foods retails a lot of their premium chocolate out of their cheese department. Was this Vosges bar a premium product? Yes, and no. It had premium packaging, and a premium price. Some of Markoff’s concoctions have been criticized for being weak or anemic, though I wouldn’t call the Calindia bar either. The chocolate flavour was intense enough, but a touch too astringent. Even so, it melded well with the cardamom. This bar should have been a very sexy treat.

Unfortunately, it fell a bit short. Perhaps because of all the bits Markoff added to the Calindia bar, it turned out to be not very glossy, or snappy; its aroma was a bit off putting and its texture not exactly smooth. This may be because it got hotter the farther south we travelled. Our Calindia bar melted, and spent a fair amount of time during our holiday in one hotel room fridge or another. And it may be because these ingredients are ideally suited to haut cookies and not haut chocolate bars.

I’ll have to categorize this as a novelty bar, and not one I’ll be in a big hurry to purchase again when I next visit our neighbour to the south.

Newman’s Own Organics Sweet Dark
With its wrapper featuring a picture of “Pa” Newman and his entrepreneurial daughter, Nell, both in traditional farmers’ attire, this bar has a whimsical appeal. And who isn’t aware of all the good works the Newman family’s food enterprises have done for the planet? These bars use Talamanca Chocolate from Costa Rica grown organically using traditional methods. Plus they are reasonably priced, at around $3.00 US for a 2.8-ounce (70 gm.) bar.

Sweet Dark bars have a nice gloss, a rich aroma, and are snappy enough. They even have a bit of a coffee top note that I enjoyed. But that’s where it ends. For me, anyway. The chocolate is a bit gritty, although at this price point, the grittiness is acceptable. Unfortunately, although it has a decent aftertaste, this bar is too sweet. The label doesn’t indicate the proportion of cacao, but I’m guessing it’s around 50%. I’d try Newman’s Own Organic chocolate again if they came out with a bar with more cocoa, something in the 70-80% range. In the meantime, if you like your dark chocolate a bit on the sweeter side, this is a decent bar, reasonably priced, and for a good cause.

We’re home now. And we’re drinking Continental Coffee’s espresso. It’s delicious. It’s also more than a week old and has been sitting in a tin on our kitchen counter since before we left. Even so, it’s still far tastier than a lot of the coffee we drank in Oregon and Southern Washington.

In almost every little town we drove into there were several drive thru espresso shacks. Clearly there is a demand for what they’re selling. They’re all managing to stay in business even though they’re selling boring putrid shyte.

We filter our water here at chez Vancouveriste, and it probably makes a difference to our coffee, though not one I ever considered until our friend Lornna reminded us that most of the water in the “good ole USA” is heavily chlorinated.

But water quality is only a small part of the answer. Methinks coffee quality is an even bigger part. The fastest way to make a buck is to cut the quality of your product, especially if your product is as habit forming as coffee.

Of course, not bothering to filter your water is another quick way to maximize your revenue. After a while, or so the theory goes, people get used to it, if they knew the difference in the first place. Then again, maybe driving up to the espresso window in your Winnebago is the height of American neo-con sophistication.

One of the worst cups of coffee I had was from an Allann Brothers outlet in Eugene that I said was abysmal in a previous post. And it surely was. But it was also, apparently, an aberration. We later tried Allann Brothers coffee in Ashland, Albany, and Corvallis, and while the coffee wasn’t brilliant, it wasn’t abysmal either. Allann Brothers is a solid Oregon-based industrial coffee roaster, no worse quality than Starbucks, really, save possibly their Eugene store.

While we were in Albany we dropped into the Wine Depot Deli, where they serve Allann Brothers coffee. They suggested we try Boccherini’s, which we did the following morning on our way out of town. Boccherini’s was what we had been hoping to find on this vacation. Not only did they serve excellent Portland Roasting Company espresso, but a charming young man pulled the shots, and the room is everything one would want their neighbourhood coffee joint to be. If Boccherini’s were in Vancouver, I’d visit often, and not just to check out the barristi.

We spent an afternoon in Portland, mainly shopping, and Mr. V. dragged me to a little downtown coffee outlet called Portland Roasting Company. I can’t even remember where it is, other than its being not too far from Pioneer Square.

We’d been there on a previous trip to Portland, and I’m not sure why we returned. It couldn’t have been for the coffee—Panache—which was only so-so.

And it certainly wasn’t to enjoy hanging about with the local slackers who seemed to fancy themselves “artistes.” One manic youngster was especially grating, despite the possibility he had good taste in books, given the way he was waving a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” around while he screamed existential clichés.

He was incredibly annoying, perhaps because he reminded me a bit of myself when I was his age, though I could never have been half so bloody loud. Had the Portland Coffee House’s coffee been great, I may have put up with his blathering, however.

We spent our last night in Olympia. Which was not as odd a choice as our first night in Vancouver, Washington, but odd enough, and in this case the choice was Mr. V.’s. There is only one word to describe the coffee that we drank in Washington’s capital city—Starbucks. Enough said.

Finally, Seattle. On a Saturday, no less. If you would like a lesson in what livability isn’t, try getting anywhere in Seattle on a Saturday. The traffic is its own special hell. (Are you listening, Minister Falcon????)

We did make it to the Pike Street Market, and paid six bucks to park for an hour. We stopped at True Colors, where they serve Seattle’s terrific Caffee Vita. We drank a couple of double shots there and bought a pound to take home.

Then, after braving the U-Dist, where it took us 45 minutes to go 10 blocks, only to find that parking was impossible, and our errands would have to wait for a future trip, we turned around and headed out to Fremont for Paseo sandwiches, and right after that, around the corner and down a couple of blocks to Lighthouse Roasters for more coffee. We like Lighthouse Roasters coffee a lot too, and after braving Seattle’s traffic, we certainly needed some. It didn’t hurt that their coffee came with a shot of Grateful Dead, either.

And then, it was off to the border, where the nice man told us we’d brought back a bit more wine than we were allowed, but to have a nice day. And we did. As soon as we got back to Vancouver, before we went home, took back the rental car or anything, we dropped into to Artigiano for one last cup. Which may explain why it took us until 4 a.m. to get to sleep that night.

We’re in Ashland now. It’s very hot. Unseasonable, apparently. Which didn’t stop us from searching for a decent espresso. We bypassed Seattle on the way down, but did stop for a few hours in Portland after over-nighting in the “other” Vancouver. Don’t ask—it was something I thought would be a good idea at the time.

Anyway I digress. Our last decent cup of coffee was at a Peet’s outlet in downtown Portland. We tried some espresso in Portland’s Alphabet District later in the afternoon and it was flat. Then later, in Eugene, we tried the local roaster, Allan Brother’s, and it was abysmal.

Further south on the I-5 we’ve noted plenty of small, free-standing drive-thru espresso shacks, and coming out of Roseburg this morning we picked up a couple of Americanos from a Dutch Roasters stand. Heavy on the American, light on the espresso, it tasted like the kind of coffee my mother used to perk back in the 70s. Not bad, but not espresso either.

In Medford we pulled into a big mall and got some half-full Americanos from Starbucks, and, compared to the rest of the dreck we’ve been drinking, they actually tasted pretty good.

The latest attempt was the Water Street Café in downtown Ashland this afternoon. Like a lot of the espresso we’ve seen in the past couple of days it had a decent crema, but ithis version tasted so awful we dumped it.

Ashland is a college town. There may be decent coffee to be had here somewhere, but we’re afraid to ask. It seems that the rich and complex brew that we Vancouverites take for granted may be elusive outside the Pacific Northwest.

Thank heavens we hit Seattle on Saturday, and Artigiano on Sunday

Our trip to Seattle was tons of fun, and we got to do a lot of what was on our list. The things we missed we'll get to next time. Seattle is a fabulous city, and one I'll look forward to visiting again.

We had a bit of a late start mainly due to congested traffic in Vancouver, and when we got to the Peace Arch crossing there was a 45-minute wait. But it was one of those glorious spring days and that made the wait a little more bearable. Even so, by the time we got into Bellingham and started searching for our breakfast destination, the Little Cheerful, it was almost time for lunch. 

The Little Cheerful is a cozy rundown place in an older part of Bellingham. When we arrived, the Dead were playing in the background and the cook was misquoting Acton on power in a too-loud voice.

Our waitress, who was very friendly, convinced us to order the “benny” specials. A traditional version for my partner, and a vegetarian version for me. Both were served on biscuits instead of sedate Canadian-style english muffins. The traditional was that and no more. The vegetarian was a hippy deluxe road breakfast, ladled with plenty of mushrooms, artichokes, asparagus, and roasted garlic. Both came with home made hash browns. We were ravenous when we arrived, and stuffed when we left, and that was good enough for us. We're not in a hurry to return, but we were glad the Little Cheerful was there when we needed it.

In Seattle we drove straight to the Watertown Hotel which is  near the University.They obliged us with an early check in. We liked the hotel, which is small and fairly new, with well laid out rooms decorated in a nautical theme.

Although the Watertown is out of the downtown area, and getting to some of Seattle's attractions takes a bit more time, it offers some extras that make it good value. A full self-service breakfast is offered every morning, and a wine tasting featuring local wines every afternoon. The rooms are stocked with Aveda soaps and shampoos. A small gym and Giant and Specialized bikes are available, as is a shuttle that can take hotel guests to various destinations around Seattle. All for a little less than the downtown hotels we researched. We'd definitely stay here again.

Stuffed from brunch at the Little Cheerful, we decided we'd have to put off our planned lunch at Salumi to another day. Instead we took the hotel shuttle downtown, and made our way to the Pike Street Market.

At the market we checked out the various goods on offer, watched a fish or two being thrown at the Pike Street Fish Market, and stopped at Local Color for our first sample of local roaster Caffe Vita's espresso. It was a rich and wonderful brew, and Local Color was a charming spot, part coffee shop and part local gallery.

We then walked though Belltown, eventually ending up at Seatle Center where we looked up at the Space Needle and walked around the Experience Music Project, which was operating on limited hours during our time in town. We'll have to wait for out next visit to check out the displays. Although he may have Canadian origins, I don't particularly like EMP architect Frank Gehry's work. It's been said that Gehry is Gaudi without the gaudy, but I think I prefer Gaudi.

We took a cab back to the hotel. I had an initial moment of comfort as the driver was listening to Schubert's Fifth Symphony. Before long though, he was driving one-handed, and shouting into a cell phone in Russian. By the time he got to the Freeway I was sitting close to the edge of my seat while we weaved through the traffic. No matter. We got back to the hotel in one piece.

Sitka and Spruce, which had been our first choice for dinner that night, was closed. We were very hungry, and very tired, having burned throught the Little Cheerful's ample calories, and we had no Plan B. So we got in the car and let it take us where it lead. Which is how we ended up on Broadway in Capitol Hill, my partner's previous life as a Dead Head and his fond memories of Broadway past having absolutely nothing to do with it.

We drove around a while looking for a place to park, which gave me a chance to scope out the neighbourhood, but there didn't appear to be much to see. Most shops were closed, a few restaurants were open, including a Mexican-themed place with windows open to the sidewalks and tables occupied with twenty-somethings drinking huge Margaritas. We decided to give that one a pass, and in the end chose what was probably the best of a bad lot.

Byzantion is a family-run Greek restaurant. Its decor was tired but still retained a little charm. Ravenous, we ordered the fried artichoke starter our server recommended as the most traditional choice. Thirty years of eating Greek food, and neither of us had heard of it. It came breaded, with a couple of lemon wedges and a side of runny, uninspired tzatziki. It was edible, but not by much. And so we resigned ourselves to our fate. Dinner would fill our stomaches, and bore us to distraction.

But that's not how it turned out. I'd ordered arni pistou, and my partner ordered the mousakka. Both were accompanied with crisp, almost al dente vegetables, his entree with rice, and mine with delcious roast potatoes. My roast lamb was well-cooked and tender, while his mousakka was well composed and flavourful. We had a few minor complaints—too much salt in the jus, not enough bechamel atop the mousakka, and the wine, a sour and uninspired riesling had been added to the list without much attention from the proprietors. But it was really not that bad. Nothing Gordon Ramsay couldn't whip into shape in half a week.

And so ended day one of our Seattle sojourn.

 For my first major league baseball experience my partner purchased tickets over first base, about 30 rows up, for an afternoon game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. We headed out to Safeco Field after a leisurely morning.

I had it in my mind we needed kettle corn and barbeque to make the experience truly authentic, and a passerby had guaranteed me that Jones barbeque, reputed to be the best in Seattle, had a stand in Safeco Field. But all we could find was Porters, where we bought a chicken sandwich to share. The line up at Porters was long, and we got to our seats just as the first pitch crossed home plate.

The barbeque was uninspring, but shared between us, along with the kettle corn, provided enough calories to hold us till dinner.

Until the seventh inning, the game was pretty flat, with the Rays scoring one technical hit. The game moved quickly. After the stretch there was a bit of action, but still no score for the Mariners. Ten million dollar man Richie Sexon struck out twice and was booed by the home crowd. The Mariners were not hitting and in the end they lost to the Devil Rays.

Two young Japanese men sat across the aisle from us, wearing shirts emblazoned with Johjima's and Suzuki's names, the two young Mariners who did seem to inspire the crowd. These young guys managed to catch two pop balls, including one that went up high, hit a wall, then bounced down on the back of my seat. I was too busy ducking and covering my head to realize what had happened till it was over.

After the game we wandered towards Pioneer Square and Elliott Bay Book Company. On the way we stopped in at Cafe Umbria. We like their coffee, particularly the Bizzari blend, which is available in Vancouver at the Well on Dunbar and 17th and at Sciue.

The Elliott Bay Book Company store was huge, not as big as Powell's in Portland, but still overwhelming. If I had to spend the rest of my life in one of them, though, I'd definitely choose Elliott Bay, because despite its hugeness, it is cozier than Powell's.

Getting back to the market for our dinner at Matt's in the Market turned out to be a bit of a challenge. We walked back from Pioneer Square, and headed towards the water when we encountered sidewalks that were chewed up and cordoned off. We wandered along at sea level till we got to the Pike Hill Climb sign. Up we went, my quads protesting silently.

When we arrived at Matt's at 7:45 our table was ready. I sat in the corner and had a very nice view over the market and the waterfront. It being a Wednesday, it was live music night, and my partner had a view of the muscians and a large mirror on the wall, with occasional glimpses into the open kitchen behind the counter.

Despite the limitations of his outlook, Matt's was pretty much perfect for us. Energetic, but not boisterous, cozy, but not cramped. Everyone, including the servers and the chef, was having a very good time. Despite being seated beside a violinist and an accordionist amidst a happy crowd in a very small room we were still able to converse comfortably.

For starters we ordered the piri piri clams and the smoked catfish salad. The clams were a standout, steamed perfectly in beer, with just the right amound of piri piri. The catfish was dense and meaty, lightly smoked, and paired very nicely with bosc pear and roasted pecan, very substantial, and almost a meal in itself.

For mains we orderd the halibut and the king salmon special. The halibut was dense and wonderful, accompanied with tomatoes and kalamata atop crisp haricot and potato fennel gratin. The salmon was poached, served on a bed of buttery garlic mashed potatoes, also with crisp haricot and topped with a spring pea and leek concoction. Very very nice. Both went well with the Tomas Pinot Grigio, and we went home that night happy and satisfied.

Rumour has it that Matt's may have been sold, and will soon relocate to larger quarters. We hope its spirit, ambience, and cuisine are not lost in any future transition.

After breakfast we walked up Roosevelt a couple of blocks from the hotel to a nearby Trader Joes. But our main goal for the morning was Seattle chocolatier Fran's Chocolates  in the University Village Mall to pick up some sea salt caramels, which, though we didn't know it at the time, made Oprah's “O” list this month, for what that may be worth.

All I knew about Fran's locale was that it shares a zip code with the Watertown Hotel. A charming fellow behind us in the check out line at Trader Joe's knew Fran's well, having been there for Valentine's Day. His nanny apparently did not like the salted caramels, which he had mistakenly bought for her.

He told us Fran's was no more than a ten minute walk from where we were standing, through the campus, past a couple of frat houses, and down a little hill.

We set off. Forty-five minutes later University Village Mall came into view. We weren't sure whether that helpful fellow was a very fast walker or someone who never got out of his car. Apparently both kinds of people live in Seattle. The long walk had its rewards. It was another nice day in Seattle, and we got a bird's eye view of Ravenna Park and a sidelong glace at Husky Stadium.

There was plenty of serious shopping to be had at U-Village. Not just the typical mall merchants like Barnes and Noble, Gap, and Eddie Bauer, but Khiels, L'Occitane en Provence, Anthropologie, and Pottery Barn Kids. There were plenty of prosperous and carefree shoppers, many of whom were young mothers pushing strollers.

Stangely enough, not a decent cup of coffee was to be found, so we ended up at one of the two Starbucks, where I had a soy latte that took the edge off my need for lunch, and my partner had an espresso that stayed mainly in the cup. Starbucks' espresso appears to be equally bad in its home city as it is in Vancouver.

We bought a few things from Fran's–a box of truffles for my mother, a 70% bar, and a couple of dark sea salt caramels. My mother loves the truffles. We found the 70% bar very nicely blended. It reminded me of Cocoa Camino's Bittersweet Bar, and we ate about half of it at the mall. The whereabouts of the other half is  a mystery.

We also split one of the salted caramels, and the first word that came to mind was “luxury.” Every ingredient in the caramel was the highest quality.  It was a bit of a challenge understanding the salt connection for a couple of seconds, but it all came together.

I must confess that just this moment I've eaten the entire second caramel myself, and the first bite was tastier than the second, but that's just me. Fran's makes incredibly fine chocolate—the kind that makes great gifts.

We were delighted to find a Williams-Sonoma store in  U-Village, and we loaded up on a few treats: their dish and hand soaps and some sauces, including the Niman Ranch Bacon pasta sauce. If ever there was a store sorely needed in Vancouver, Williams-Sonoma is it. They don't even ship to Canada over the internet, so we were delighted by our unplanned encounter.

We decided to take the bus back to the hotel, and the ride provided us another view of the University of Washington campus, and a stop a mere two blocks from our hotel, which we got back to around 2 pm.

I'd had quite enough of walking for that day, thank you very much, having left my orthotics at home. By now, my feet were killing me. So we hopped in the car for a drive into Fremont, hoping to have lunch at Persimmon.

It being a weekday, lunch at Persimmon was not on. But a kind and friendly woman in Persimmon did open the door for a quick chat. She sent us across the street to Paseo for their prawn sandwich.

Paseo is just a little hole in the wall, and most of its menu features Cuban-inspired sandwiches. We ordered two–a prawn and a cuban pulled pork. Both came with the house sauce, not as spicy as we might have liked at our requested “medium”, some jalapenos, bits of cilantro, and piles of caramelized onions. Pure messy deliciousness, and unbelievably filling, despite our by now ravenous appetites. We loved it, but found  the pulled pork very dense and solid. Paseo does not advertise, but another review is here.

After lunch we went around the corner to Phinney Street to check out Lighthouse Roasters espresso. This was a friendly, funky neighbourhood roaster that looked like a place where coffee is taken seriously. The fellow at the bar pulled us a couple of shots  which we found to be smooth, with a caramelly aftertaste. Nice, but it seemed to lack the bitter notes that we relish in our coffee.

After lunch and coffee the plan was to head back down the hill to Theo's chocolates, but they were closed when we arrived, and are apparently only open to the public on Sundays. Just then it started to rain, so we returned to the hotel for a much needed afternoon nap.

Around 7 pm we headed out in the car again. Our plan was to stop by Sitka and Spruce to see if we could pop by for a late dinner, since we were still full from the Paseo sandwiches. But we were out of luck once again. Matthew, the chef, was out of prepared food, having cooked for the first seating, and not in the mood for firing up the kitchen again that night. He was quite charming about it, and invited us back for lunch the next day, but we'd earmarked our last lunch for Salumi.

Sitka and Spruce was full of happily animated diners, and the counter was covered with bowls, mostly emptied of what had been on offer that evening. We liked the quasi-family concept and the idea of surrendering to a young chef who cooks what ever he feels like cooking. Sitka and Spruce will be on our list for our return visit to Seattle. With a 4-year lease on his space on Eastlake, we may be more fortunate next time.

We then went for another drive, ending up at the Ballard Locks just at sundown. It was cold so close to the water. We spent a while watching for salmon smolts through the fish gates, but didn't see any. A blue heron was waiting downsteam, hoping for some supper, but he may have been out of luck.

Since we were only slightly hungry by 9 pm, we decided on Bandoleone in Fremont for dinner because we knew they served small plates. The room was warm and dark, and service was very attentive. We told our serer we weren't very hungry, and he suggested we order three small plates to start. He steered us away from a couple of dishes he said were only so so. Despite having what we thought was our fill or pork at Paseo earlier that day, our waiter really encouraged us to order the pulled pork carnitas, which we did.

Bandoleone's version of pulled pork was very different from Paseo's. It was very delicately shredded and its spicing complex; the carnitas came with three salsas. We loved the habanero ketchup, and thought the tomatillo and traditional salsas were very good as well.

Next we ordered wild mushroom bolsa, which, being a winter dish came with a heavy cream sauce. It was garnished with pistachios and artichokes. The pasta was cooked perfectly, and the dish was very enjoyable.

Last we split a crab cake, which sounds odd, but it was generously proportioned and meaty. The crab cake sat on a bed of plantain hash and wilted chard, a very interesting and tasty combination. After these plates we were full, and ready to return to the hotel. We would definitely like to come back to Bandoleone some time for a real dinner.

We only had two items on our "to do" list for our last day in Seattle. First, back to Pike Street Market to pick up stuff we wanted to take home, and second over to Salumi for lunch, and a planned exit before Seattle's afternoon rush began.

At the market we shopped first at De Laurenti, where we picked up some Caffe Vita beans and two bars of Theo Chocolate—the bread and chocolate bar and the nib brittle bar. Both were labelled 65%, but this chocolate is deliciously earthy and dark, very different from the refined chocolate from Fran's. It's the kind of chocolate I could happily eat every day; however it is so good I am hoarding it.

We also picked up some cheese from Beechers—their Flagship and Tranquility as well as a Brindisi from the Willamette Valley. Unfortunately we were leaving town the day before the cheese festival began, so we missed that little bit of heaven. We also bought some smoked salmon and some herbed olive oil and balsamic vinegar before making another stop at True Color for a last Caffe Vita espresso. We then headed to Salumi.

When we arrived at Salumi around 1 pm, there were about 30 people in the line up, so we decided to get our lunch to go. Somehow though, because we ordered some salumi and proscuitto to take out that would take some time to cut, weigh, and price, we found ourselves eating lunch at the communal table.

We ordered two special sandwhiches, the cinnamon pork and the roast lamb, which, as per usual for this trip, we shared. Both were good, dressed with onions and roasted pepper condiments and served on crusty bread. If I had any criticism, I'd say there was a bit too much bread, which I couldn't finish.

We decided when we come back for a game at either Safeco Field or Qwest Stadium we'll arrange our day so we can pick up something from Salumi to snack on during the game, since all are located so close together.

At the table we struck up a conversation with a couple of very pleasant local fellows, one of whom had spent some time at Sooke Harbour House. They were quite impressed at all the good eating spots we had managed to try in such a short time, and I told them it was mainly thanks to the obliging folks on the Seattle Chowhound board. 

Before long Gina brought over our cold cuts and joined us for a chat about life in Vancouver and Seattle. She kindly indulged my question about Mario and said he was a wonderful older brother.

We chatted about the menu for Armandino's latest dinner, which was still written on the chalkboard and included “mystery cheeses” and pig snout and tail antipasti. The latter is probably a bit too exotic for my pedestrian tastes, but times change and people do too.

Gina was concerned about whether we'd get our cold cuts over the border, as others had failed. We decided to throw chance to the wind and give it a go.

Lunch done, we got a tour from Gina of the back rooms where the meats are mixed and cured.

And then we headed home.

At the border we had another 45 minute wait. When our turn came, we answered the Customs Officer's questions and then drove into Canada with our cold cuts and other treats still in the trunk the way we'd packed them. A perfect example of the “Don't ask. Don't tell.” policy at work.

P.S. Salumi's mole salami is quite wonderful. A great way to enjoy chocolate.